Boredom is the most underrated reason for bad trades

[Shadow Trader]

Scalping involves a lot of waiting. Good setups may appear a handful of times in a session, with long gaps in between. Sitting through those gaps is harder than it sounds.

Boredom pushes toward action. A marginal setup starts looking good. A trade gets taken simply to have something happening. The edge, which required patience, gets traded away for stimulation.

Recognising the pattern is the first step. Notice when a trade is taken after a long wait, and ask whether the setup would have qualified an hour earlier. If the answer is no, boredom made the decision.

Practical remedies include keeping the screen setup simple, scheduling the trading window around the most active hours so there is less dead time, and giving the waiting time something to do, such as updating the journal or reviewing the previous day.

Some traders stand up and walk away when nothing is happening, setting alerts for the levels they care about. It removes the temptation to click at nothing.

What do you do during the long gaps between valid setups, and does it help?

[FXS London Scalper]

Good setups may appear a handful of times in a session, with long gaps in between.

Long gaps between good setups are part of the job, not a sign of missing something. A hard cap on trades per session, say six for the London morning, turns each marginal setup into a question of whether it deserves one of the remaining slots. Usually it doesn't.